Prospects of Agroforestry as Climate-smart Agricultural Strategy in Cocoa Landscapes: Perspectives of Farmers in Ghana

Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) is increasingly being promoted by the international community to help farmers adapt to climate change and lift them out of poverty. An essential technique that is promoted under the climatemitigating smart agriculture policy package to reduce forest loss is agroforestry—the planting of woody plants or trees into farming systems. Integrating agroforesty into cocoa landscapes, it is argued, create forest-like habitats which serves as faunal refuges, sequester carbon and therefore contribute to increasing agricultural productivity, resilience (adaptation) and removal of greenhouse gas emissions. This article uses a qualitative data collected from 100 households in seven communities around the Kakum National Park in the Twifo Hemang Lower Denkyira District in Ghana, where a climate-smart agriculture programme is being piloted. The study analysed the extent of willingness of farmers to participate in interventions that promote increased adoption of agroforestry in cocoa landscapes. The result shows that though farmers have favourable perception about the role of agroforestry on cocoa systems, and are willing to adopt the practice, this does not automatically translate into their willingness to participate in agroforestry program that was asking them to extend the number of trees currently maintained on their cocoa landscapes. The study further reveals that size of farms, the age and height of cocoa trees, extension support and the general ecology of the cocoa varieties as some of the reasons influencing whether the agroforestry practices promoted could be adopted or not

Ghanaian media coverage of violence against women and girls: implications for health promotion

Abstract Background Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is an important public health issue. Framing studies indicate that how the news media cover public health issues is critical for designing effective health promotion interventions. Notwithstanding this, there is little research particularly in low-and middle-income country context examining how the news media frame VAWG. This paper examines news coverage of VAWG in Ghana, and the implications of this for health promotion. Methods This study used frame analysis as the methodological framework in examining how VAWG in Ghana is represented by the media. Qualitative content analysis approach to frame analysis was performed on 48 news articles which constituted the unit of analysis. Results The findings indicate that media framing of VAWG was episodic in nature as the acts of violence perpetrated against women and girls were presented as individual cases without reference to the wider social contexts within which they occurred. Similarly, victim blaming language was largely used in the news articles. In framing VAWG as an individual incident and women as helpless victims, the media fail to shape society’s perception of VAWG as a social and public health issue. Conclusions For the media in Ghana to contribute to the prevention of VAWG, there is the need for news coverage to focus on social construction of the issue, and also raise awareness about support services available to victims